Love on a small stage: 'Romeo and Juliet' tackled by Hovey Players

David Brooks Andrews

Thursday

Sep 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMSep 25, 2008 at 11:15 PM

One doesn't necessarily go to a community theater expecting to find the most polished or elaborate production of "Romeo and Juliet" that you've ever seen. Naturally. Professional companies are able to lavish far more money and years of experience on the play than most community theaters could ever muster.

One doesn't necessarily go to a community theater expecting to find the most polished or elaborate production of "Romeo and Juliet" that you've ever seen. Naturally. Professional companies are able to lavish far more money and years of experience on the play than most community theaters could ever muster.

But the Hovey Players demonstrate with their "Romeo and Juliet" that there are other reasons to see a low-budget production of such a familiar Shakespearean work. By staging the play in their low-ceilinged basement theater in modern dress with a very spare set - that doesn't even include an elevated balcony - they demonstrate that Shakespeare has written a truly gripping story that doesn't depend on all of the accessories it's often given.

And Hovey demonstrates that it's very much a story for today.

True, young couples don't usually feel the need to get married so hastily today, especially not with the more relaxed sexual mores. And love affairs tend to have less difficult boundaries to bridge. But in today's jittery financial markets with our country's political parties intensely pitted against each other, one doesn't feel that far removed from the world of the Capulets and Montagues, with their hostilities and the fragility of their social structures.

Director Jessie Olson has gone for a high-octane approach to the play. The signature element of the production is the several breathtaking fight sequences that could easily hold a candle to those on many professional stages. In this case, the fighting is not with swords, since it's modern dress, but rather with fists, feet and a stray piece of lumber. Thanks to highly experienced fight director Edward Eaton, fists fly and appear to the eye and ear to land, bodies are thrown hard against a supporting pole in the midst of the stage, and metal tables are turned over with a loud clatter. It creates an intense electricity and feeling of danger, underscored when Michael Haddad as Tybalt picks up Jorge Martinez, who plays Benvolio, and holds him six inches off the ground.

The risk of such a high-intensity approach to a play is that it tends to encourage actors to arrive instantly at their final destinations causing us to miss some of the emotional journey. Tom Giordano as Romeo hits his emotional ceiling too early in the show, though his energy and conviction about his lines work well later on. Early on he also tends to play attitudes rather than the specific moment. Others overact, too, and would benefit from taking more time with their lines. Some of this may have been part of getting past opening night butterflies.

Rebecca Baumwoll makes for a lovely Juliet. After she and Romeo meet at a dance hosted by her family - beautifully choreographed by Eve Summer - their balcony scene has all of the intensity and youthful passion it should. One can feel from both this Romeo and Juliet how determined they are to get married the next day. The simple swinging of a paned-glass door conveys the sense of Juliet's balcony and bedroom. It's a lovely piece of stagecraft that engages our imaginations.

Juliet and Ronni Marshak as her Nurse have a couple of delightful scenes together that underscore just how beautifully the role of the Nurse is written. In the first, Marshak humorously milks the way the Nurse teases Juliet, refusing to give her Romeo's news about the time of their wedding. And in the second scene, Marshak's Nurse turns against Romeo the moment he's banished, as quickly as a politician changes positions when the wind shifts.

Gabrielle Hatcher has courageously taken on Mercutio as her first significant stage role. While no doubt she'll continue to grow into it, she certainly captures the feeling of his dying as he's led off stage.

Olson has beautifully staged an ironic juxtaposition of two scenes, so they happen at the same moment - Romeo arriving to spend the night with Juliet before he has to flee for his life and Bill Doscher as Capulet persuading Paris to marry his daughter Juliet.

Doscher brings a tough edge to Capulet, and Sara Jones as Lady Capulet has the no-nonsense pragmatism of a modern mother who can spit in Benvolio's face for kicking the dying Tybalt and matter-of-factly stand up to Juliet, making it clear that she has no option but to marry Paris.

There's a wonderfully intuitive and playful exchange between Giordano's Romeo and Baumwoll's Juliet when she tries to persuade him to stay a little longer with her in bed. As much as he'd love to, he hears the morning lark and knows that every moment of delay could cost him his life.

Not everything about this production totally works, but the many scenes and moments that do are satisfying. And none is more haunting than Lauren Hall as Balthasar sitting on the floor of the catacombs, where both Romeo and Juliet have died, sobbing as the play comes to an end.

WHAT: "Romeo and Juliet"

WHEN: Through Oct. 4

WHERE: Hovey Players, 9 Spring St., Waltham

COST: $16; $14 for students and seniors

INFO: 781-893-9171; www.hoveyplayers.com

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